Free Affidavit - District Court of Connecticut - Connecticut

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Collins, Francis (NHGRI)

From: Collins, Francis (NHGRI) -
Sent: Tuesday, December 28, 1999 11:26 AM g ·
To: 'Venter, J. Craig'; ‘Arnie Levine (E—maiI)‘; 'White, Tony'; 'whitetl@pe—corp.com'
Cc: Varmus, Harold (OD); Bob Waterston (E—mail); '[email protected]’ y
Subject: Tomorrow's meeting
Dear Craig, Arnie, and Tony, ` ~
Harold Varmus, Bob Waterston, Martin Bobrow, and l are looking forward to meeting with you tomorrow
(Dec. 29) at 10:30 AM, in the Loudon room of the Hyatt Dulles in·Herndon, VA. Please find below a suggested
agenda for these discussions, and an additional document of suggested “Shared_Principles" that we and our
colleagues have prepared to guide item #3 ofthe proposed agenda. -
l will call Craig this afternoon to review any last minute issues.
Regards, ’ '
Francis
PROPOSED AGENDA
MEETING BET\/VEENPUBLIC HGP NEGOTIATORS AND CELERA GENOMICS
10:30 AM December 29, 1999 -- Hyatt Dulles, Herndon, VA
1) Introductions
2) Logistics of negotiations · `
. -- Public project involves many groups, need for consultation before decision—making
-— Keeping of minutes
3) Discussion of "Shared Principles" document
4) Review of current sequence production and data access schedule
—- Celera (Venter)
—— The international consortium (Collins)
5) Nature of possible collaborative effort and logistics. of merging data sets
6) Possible limitations on use of merged data
7) Recess for parties to confer amongst themselves ‘ l U U _
8) Next steps »
9) Discussion of how to handle media inquiries about these negotiations »
December 28, 1999
12/29/99 l .
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SHARED PRINCIPLES I
There seems to be general agreement that: ; _
· 0 The public HGP and Celera Genomics each have the capacity to generate substantial coverage of the .
_ sequence of the human genome.
0 Humankind will be better served if we can End a viable way to join forces to produce a better product in a -
-more timely fashion. _
o The methods being used (clone—based and whole-genome shotgun) are, in fact, complementary. They . .
provide much opportunity for cross—checking.
o A collaboration would offer the opportunity for joint optimization of experimental strategy and analytical
methods.
o The current antagonism and excessive- competition should be replaced with a more collaborative spirit.
o The public HGP is committed to the complete sequence of the human genome being freely available in the
public domain. r - ` `
o The public HGP understands that Celera Genomics will be making its consensus sequence of the human
genome broadly available.
o Celera Genomics is able to see assembled data generated by the public labs and is free to use it for its
proprietary databases, but a scientihc publication thatcombines substantial data from both sources should,
according to accepted scientific practice, be a joint publication involving authors from both groups.
The outline_of a collaborative effort might be as follows: _
1. Joint Publication.
The two sides would agree to joint publication of a collaborative paper reporting joint analysis of both the public
and Celera data, co—authored by appropriate scientists from both sides. An additional paper reporting analysis
_ of the public data from the public HGP labs might also be simultaneously submitted.
The collaborative paper would necessarily involve that co-authors from the public side have sufficient access to
the Celera data and any joint analysis during the preparation of a paper to be able to comfortably sign their
names to a paper.
` There is some concern about the appearance of public HGP scientists having access to Celera's data before it
is made public. The best solution might be to limit the period of access, perh_aps to 90 days before submission
of a paper. _ - .
The most realistic timeframe would be to aim for the paper(s) to appear near the end of 2000 (perhaps in _ _
Science), which would require submission in the late summer or" fall and would involve collaboration beginning ‘ ‘
in the late spring or summer. · - I r -
It is important that the public consortium's participation in this collaboration does not contribute directly to
development of intellectual property for Celera, whether in terms of sequence or SNPs.
2. Data Release.
The public HGP will continue to release their data immediately. ‘
Celera and other companies would continue to be free to use these data to create and sell databases. ‘
_ Upon publication of the papers, the_human sequence produced from the analysis of the public and Celera data
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will also be released in accessible "media". The ideal medium (because of its universal accessibility) would be
an internet-accessible database. Access solely through Celera's database has substantial disadvantages from
the public consortium‘s perspective. .
3. Public Relations V T l
Consideration will be given to preparing a brief statement indicating that the possibility of collaboration is being
_ explored. During the negotiations no information will be provided to the press by either party.
lf agreement is reached, the two sides will jointly prepare a document and press releases describing the
rationale for and nature of the collaboration. Both sides will make all efforts to support this agreement. This
includes honest and straightforward responses to scientitic inquiries, but avoiding disparaging the other party,
sowing discord or undermining the collaborative spirit. lt will require a generosity of spirit in acknowledging the
legitimate and important role of both parties. _ ‘
I')/29/99
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